Fluentd output plugin for Datadog

It mainly contains a proper JSON formatter and a socket handler that streams logs directly to Datadog - so no need to use a log shipper if you don't wan't to.

Pre-requirements

To add the plugin to your fluentd agent, use the following command:

gem install fluent-plugin-datadog

If you installed the td-agent instead

/usr/sbin/td-agent-gem install fluent-plugin-datadog

Usage

Configure the output plugin

To match events and send them to Datadog, simply add the following code to your configuration file.

TCP example:

# Match events tagged with "datadog.**" and
# send them to Datadog
<match datadog.**>

  @type datadog
  @id awesome_agent
  api_key <your_api_key>

  # Optional
  include_tag_key true
  tag_key 'tag'

  # Optional parameters
  dd_source '<INTEGRATION_NAME>' 
  dd_tags '<KEY1:VALU1>,<KEY2:VALUE2>'
  dd_sourcecategory '<MY_SOURCE_CATEGORY>'

</match>

After a restart of FluentD, any child events tagged with datadog are shipped to your platform.

Validation

Let's make a simple test.

 curl -X POST -d 'json={"message":"hello Datadog from fluentd"}' http://localhost:8888/datadog.test

Produces the following event:

{
    "message": "hello Datadog from fluentd"
}

fluent-plugin-datadog properties

Let's go deeper on the plugin configuration.

As fluent-plugin-datadog is an output_buffer, you can set all output_buffer properties like it's describe in the fluentd documentation.

Property	Description	Default value
api_key	This parameter is required in order to authenticate your fluent agent.	nil
use_json	Event format, if true, the event is sent in json format. Othwerwise, in plain text.	true
include_tag_key	Automatically include tags in the record.	false
tag_key	Name of the tag attribute, if they are included.	"tag"
use_ssl	If true, the agent initializes a secure connection to Datadog. In clear TCP otherwise.	true
max_retries	The number of retries before the output plugin stops. Set to -1 for unlimited retries	-1
max_retries	The number of retries before the output plugin stops. Set to -1 for unlimited retries	-1
dd_source	This tells Datadog what integration it is	nil
dd_sourcecategory	Multiple value attribute. Can be used to refine the source attribtue	nil
dd_tags	Custom tags with the following format "key1:value1, key2:value2"	nil

Docker and Kubernetes tags

Tags in Datadog are critical to be able to jump from one part of the product to the other. Having the right metadata associated to your logs is therefore important to jump from the container view or any container metrics to the most related logs.

If your logs contain any of the following attributes, it will automatically be added as Datadog tags (with the same name as on your metrics) on your logs:

• kubernetes.container_image
• kubernetes.container_name
• kubernetes.namespace_name
• kubernetes.pod_name
• docker.container_id

If the Datadog Agent collect them automatically, FluentD requires a plugin for this. We recommend using fluent-plugin-kubernetes_metadata_filter to collect Docker and Kubernetes metadata.

Configuration example:

# Collect metadata for logs tagged with "kubernetes.**"
<filter kubernetes.*>
  type kubernetes_metadata
</filter>